a pound of feathers, a pound of stone
by Rabbitprint
Summary: Set before the Thirteenth, shortly after the sundering, spoilers for 5.0 MSQ. An Emet-Selch and Igeyorhm interlude. "If there is any experiment made towards the recombining of souls," Igeyorhm declares, "it should be waged upon my essence first."


The restaurant they've claimed for lunch is a small one, on the border between two countries who have lived so long together that their greatest differences lie in the words they use for bread, brewing, and financial legitimacy. Farmers and traders trickle by in a ragged flow. Their voices mingle together in communal disappointment at the poor grain harvests of the year, and the perpetual weakness of the soil. Food perfumes the air even out on the dining patio: of coffee harsh and pitiless, stews left to steep and dough rising in the oven. Igeyorhm has already devoured two cups of the restaurant's brew, along with an extra pat of butter on her toast.

Later on, she'll go to possess some general in a stronghold south of here; she has a fresh crystal from Emet-Selch for the purpose, one that's not already being used to suppress her current host. She'll read through the general's study and private documents, and order troops about in what will seem like perfectly reasonable patrols - at least until the war breaks out. Even then, she'll have a vast amount of leeway before true suspicion is cast upon the man's role in it. The pull of Darkness is already strong upon this shard; its inhabitants are accustomed to all manner of beastkin slinking out from corners unseen, snatching up their kin and stealing away corpses to be gnawed upon. They warn of shadows early to their children here. They teach their young to watch for monsters with every step.

Monsters, Igeyorhm supposes, that she now numbers among as well.

It is strange to think of herself as a creature to be feared. Mortal ignorance will dress her in madness, paint a hunger upon her that is no more refined than a rabid beastkin frothing at the mouth. She will not allow their opinions to sway her. She is a member of the Convocation; her goals and peers are both of noble intent. She has never accepted failure before. She will not be defeated now.

Emet-Selch is beside her, reading some merchant's ledger stolen out of a vault, looking pensive as he sips from his cup and turns the pages with clawed fingers. He had made certain to pay the restaurant in full for their meal, counting out a handful of coins with practiced unconcern. It is an exchange of plain numbers: a baffling idea at heart for being so restrictive. Its commerce hinges upon the assumption that the food would not have been given freely, or that assistance in kind might not be offered from those who had eaten it. That the bakers might be willing to allow a traveler to perish for lack of resources, unable to shape food for themselves out of the local aether - or that someone might take more than they needed, leaving the cooks stranded in turn.

Payment. Igeyorhm does not find it as strange as she should. Not anymore. That fact disquiets her immensely. Like a child stolen from its home and raised by its own rivals, Igeyorhm had thought the practice to be perfectly reasonable when she had been a mortal; only by having a chance to step outside of it, to _remember_ having lived another way, had the cold horror finally sunk in.

It had been agonizing to wake up into such realizations. It had been worse to realize just how much of a mercy such a waking truly was.

It frightens her, how readily Hydaelyn has disintegrated her people through the acid of forced assimilation, stripping them away from their families and culture and plunging them into foreign lands. How Hydaelyn has unmade an entire legacy of Ascians who were singularly devoted to the care and nurturing of their star, clawing out Her victory with no care for either balance or bloodshed.

The price which Zodiark had demanded was costly, true - but it was not, at least, their own self-identities.

Bread crust crackles in Igeyorhm's hands as she tears off a chunk and chews it thoughtfully, clumsy with the thicker knuckles of her borrowed body. The sooner she can fix this, the better. Being surrounded by these distorted shards forces experiences into her that she does not want, thoughts that she does not wish to retain. Mortal years have seared her memory. Igeyorhm has learned the lessons of possessions being taken away which could not be replaced by a mere thought, of going hungry without any sign of relief, of being hurt by both kin and strangers alike. Of locking doors for fear of what might otherwise come through them in the night. She wants to forget everything she can about those days, like a muddy robe remade clean with a shake of its aether, dissolved and recompiled in as much time as it takes to imagine the act.

She wants, badly, to be clean again.

She had gotten rid of her first body as fast as she could, before she'd even really found out how to get a new one - which was a bit of an oversight on her part, in retrospect. She hadn't been able to overcome the unease of looking at the body's face, even after reshaping its aether to several different appearances; every time she had glimpsed herself, she had felt the nauseating sway of two histories intersecting. It had made her feel trapped and panicky, as if Hydaelyn would reach out to snatch her memories away again at any moment. She'd ended up flinging the body off the spires of a mountain range, and had ridden it all the way down. Emet-Selch had been the one to find her soul floating in the rift a bit guiltily, sighing before gathering her up in his arms and carrying her back to the Source.

Her current vessel is alive. For now. Igeyorhm still doesn't know what to do about that. There's still a fractional soul nestled within the crystal of darkness she used to pave the way for her possession, gone quiet and dorment, and if she breaks the binding to depart, that soul will eventually wake up again and wonder at its own gaps. She has taken it places, done things with its hands which others would call lawless. Her aether has marked it, weakened its boundaries permanently. Yet - as a vital part of the Underworld - its soul is precious too, even in a crumpled, delusional state. Better to return it to the aetherial flow, allow its energies to rejoin with the current so that it can be reborn, and leave its inherited deeds behind.

But if this flesh dies with Igeyorhm within it, she'll be tossed back into the rift again. She's not sure if the most merciful thing to do would be to drop it off the edge of something steep and leave right before the bottom, so that its owner won't have much time to react before death takes them. Or drug it perhaps, let it drift away in a dreamless sleep where the heart beats more and more slowly, until it, too, finds its final rest. If she asks Emet-Selch to dispose of her body for her, it's as good as admitting that she's not ready to handle such assignments on her own yet, and she'd rather learn how to do it properly now.

It is troublesome, finding the right balance for a polite death.

But the body is a nice fit in the meantime, some miqo'te or whatever they call them on the Thirteenth. It is younger than the specimen that Emet-Selch similarly wears, but not by much; they could be brothers, cousins, lovers to this world's eyes, unremarkable for spending their days together. Her one concession so far is to turn her vessel's fur blue, out of curiosity for how the color would take to the hairs of his body. She keeps biting her own tongue by accident, running the tip of it against the tiny fangs. Coffee tastes different in his mouth, and she's interested in flavors which are stronger to his senses, twitching the body's ears back and forth for the novelty of it.

It might be entertaining to wear a miqo'te again. She'll certainly have a range of hosts, by the time all this is done.

She has no idea how they'll kill Hydaelyn. _That _is a death which will take far more creativity. She's worried about that, since the same method would surely work upon Zodiark as well. With the creative concept of gods now established, they'll need to prevent Hydaelyn from ever being resummoned - not to mention the issue of how they'll keep Hydaelyn from simply taking one look at a partially-restored Zodiark, and smashing Him a second time - but Igeyorhm suspects that these very questions have been plaguing the three unsundered of their ranks, and with just as much frustration.

Her mind won't stop racing. Like wildfire, it devours every idea she feeds towards it, and greedily demands more. It's exactly what her mothers always warn her about: a cautionary tale that Igeyorhm has heard since childhood about the dangers of moving too fast. They always say that she'll run and run until she uses up every last road, and will have to learn transformation by default while plummeting into the abyss, growing her own wings to fly.

Said. That was what Igeyorhm's mothers always _said_.

She distracts herself from a fresh gout of mourning by spooning more sugar into her cup. Amaurot has been dust for centuries, and Igeyorhm still cannot ingest the reality of it. It's fine, she tells herself. She can shoulder it - _will _shoulder it - and stop their people's pain here. She will wipe away all sorrow from the faces of her fellow Convocation members - the growing tightness in their eyes that never goes away, the way that Elidibus never seems rested anymore, how Lahabrea has begun to wince when he laughs - and she will try to forget the same violation that has been done to her, before it melts into her identity forever.

She is restless with the unsolved problem of it, though - fidgeting with her meal and smearing tomato paste listlessly across her toast - until Emet-Selch finally lifts his head from his book, and asks mildly, "Are you _still_ fretting, Igeyorhm?"

Igeyorhm quiets her hands in an instant, though her tail betrays her, swishing back and forth like an outraged eel. "Mayhap."

Emet-Selch shrugs, his thumb marking his place in his text. His control over his borrowed flesh is more practiced; he gives away nothing with the idle flick of his ears. "The matter is not that complicated, if you introduce the right incentives. Bribe an adventurer or three if you've need of extra hands. It ever amazes me what these people will do for a handful of coin that's less than it takes to repair their armor."

He changes the topic then without warning, nodding towards one of the farmers he's been watching off and on for the last few minutes, some unremarkable local chewing their lunch sullenly at one of the distant tables. "While I have your attention, tell me - what are your thoughts on that individual over there, with the poorly-groomed beard?"

Igeyorhm squints gamely at his target, seeing only the blunt features of a male hyur at first. The wisps of the man's soul are little better. Her vision has never been as sharp as Emet-Selch's - few ever came close - and now, at a fraction of her capacity, what should have been a vivid rainbow is instead as drained as a tapestry bleached for centuries beneath the sun.

"His soul is an interesting color, I suppose. Close to mine, isn't it?" she adds, lifting her hand as she attempts to compare the shades.

Only silence answers her. When she glances over to Emet-Selch for confirmation, she sees his gaze weighing upon her, as shuttered and private as if he were watching her from across the distance of a debate hall, waiting for the opening remarks.

She's not stupid, of course; she catches on immediately upon recognizing his scrutiny. A dismayed, scoffing noise of dismay exits her lips as she considers her twin blithely chewing on a forkful of vegetables. "What," she begins, utterly perplexed by the surreality of it all. "What should I do, Emet-Selch? Should I - talk to him? To _me_? The aether of their being, should we not be able to do _something _-"

Thankfully, Emet-Selch comes to her rescue, even as her imagination threatens to trap her with too many options. "Rejoining this shard to the Source should be the most stable route, as planned." Leaning back in his chair, the man rubs hard at the fox-sharp point of his chin, lost momentarily in the dilemma of it all. "Doing so should bring your fragments together naturally, as they would lose their incarnate form and their aether would be drawn towards the Source - and from there, automatically to you. It will be a more difficult matter for those who originate from elsewhere, but we were lucky in how we found you." He makes a deceptively careless wave of his hand, a gesture which hangs theatrically in the air without any applause to back it. "Still, it might well be an invitation for disaster if we awoke two separate manifestations of your soul, who might both serve as lodestones for your essence. Also," he adds mildly, "Lahabrea would almost certainly explode."

Dismayed, Igeyorhm watches Emet-Selch give her trapped soul only one last, resigned glance before returning to his work. _Should_, he said. _Should _is theoretical, as _all_ of their plans are until they can bring the first part of their star home. The aftermath of an apocalypse is a poor time to develop a new school of aetheric manipulation - and yet they _must_, herself included. They experiment with their very star, and there are only thirteen chances to get it right.

"I've been trained in holding a Prime state," she argues. "Could I not perform the same feat here?" It sounds ludicrous and dangerous, but also something she could _survive_. Mostly. "Should that not work to begin putting us back together? Like clay, couldn't we just - start squashing our souls together? What if I tried to possess their body, how would that turn out?"

Such a possibility must have been discussed already; Igeyorhm can't imagine Lahabrea skipping _that _particular debate. Yet by the very fact that such a method has not been proposed to her, she can already guess at its failure. If all it would take to heal their sundered brethren would be to sift each world, then _that _would be their first priority in restoring their ranks, even before the shards themselves. Then none of them would risk their entire star on the shoulders of three weary Convocation members; they might still yet avert Hydaelyn's attempted genocide.

Disappointingly enough, Emet-Selch confirms her suspicions by merely drumming his fingers upon the table, a staccato heartbeat that dwindles into lethargy. "The energy expenditure of maintaining a Prime condition is no small thing. Trying to recombine the energies of your soul would be fourteen times the effort. Even by Elidibus's calculations, the energy curve would become exhaustive past a certain point." Yet his fingers shift to fretting against the edge of his book's cover; her words have caught his attention after all, coaxing it back into examination of the theories. "If two shards could reconnect to one another by mere aetheric proximity, we would simply be able to open sufficient portals and allow them to merge. Lahabrea can tell you how poorly _that _approach works," he adds, dryly. "Perhaps one day, once the Source's Underworld has enough density to exert its own gravity, it might be possible. Until then, for a permanent fusion, I believe that repairing a single soul would follow the same requirements as an entire shard - that we must overstress one star so that the aether of the second is compelled to connect in order to heal the other, like scar tissue joining the skin of a cut. It makes sense for the two to parallel, at least. Aether is aether, in the end."

She listens to him with mounting excitement. "So," she begins briskly, "it seems clear -"

"No, you are _not _to assault your soul, Igeyorhm," Emet-Selch announces, already jumping to the inevitable conclusion before she can properly wheedle him into submission. "And please, do _not _invite _yourself _to be assaulted in your other's presence." He gives her a concerned frown over his journal, until he finally pins down the pages of his book and stares at her over the letters. "Nor do I wish to indoctrinate our people into the habit of stalking and hunting their own selves down like prey. _Promise_ me you will not do anything rash to yourself, Igeyorhm. Lahabrea would never let me hear the end of it."

She will not give up so easily; it is the first solid direction she has to pursue. "And why shouldn't I, Emet-Selch," she challenges, incited by sheer stubbornness. "After all, you have a spare."

She'd meant it as a rallying cry. A reassurance that even after their star has been shattered, there is still hope. That, in her current form - not as gravely irreplaceable as any of the unsundered - there is nothing to fear by accident, or injury.

Emet-Selch's reaction is far worse. His eyes widen for a moment and then he shakes his head, slowly, emphatically, as if beyond his conscious control - as if she has wounded him with a spell formed from pure sound. "No, Igeyorhm. _No_."

She frowns. Queasiness replaces confusion, as an unpleasant notion takes swift root in the back of her mind, and hisses to her from the murk. Bracing her arm against the table, she leans forward across it, ignoring the hazards of their lunch beside her elbow. "What happened, Emet-Selch?" And then again, with growing urgency: "Emet-Selch, who among us has already been _lost?_"

"Don't," he whispers.

She freezes, unsure and sick with it. The implications continue to bubble. If one of their own has been annihilated - fourteen times _over _destroyed - then the Convocation would have an empty seat in truth, to be granted to another Ascian out of desperation rather than as an honor. It could never _be _an honor again. Not like that. The inheritor of such a role would know that its previous holder was gone forever, never to see the lights of home. They would have to carry that living memorial forward and inform all of Amaurot about the loss one day, their responsibility to the dead invoked with each utterance of that name upon another's lips.

Knowledge has never been a thing for her people to fear before. Even when the Final Days had come, and throughout the devastating grief afterwards, Amaurot had always said, _we will learn from this_.

And yet now, they are _all _learning things which should have never been brought among their people, perspectives which poison those who harbor them, like willingly allowing an abscess to fester within their bodies and poison the nearby flesh. From Emet-Selch's reticence alone, she can guess how they have corroded him in the same manner: a slow wound leaking fluids into his gut, turning septic under the skin while he holds his expression like a mask. Even the small amount of what Igeyorhm has experienced has been enough to make her feel as if she will never be the same again.

She can only guess how much he - and the other two survivors - have already witnessed.

She swallows down her shame, feeling the knot of regret in her throat. "I accept responsibility for your distress, and seek to make amends." She says it in Ascian with a miqo'te's mouth. She says it as best she can in this body of hers, which is fractional in every way. "How can we make this better?"

Yet, despite her best efforts at solace, the familiar harmonics bring an unfamiliar pain to Emet-Selch's face; he winces and closes his eyes. The curve of his mouth is no less sorrowful. "Spare those words this place," he murmurs at last, and if he has also slipped into Ascian as well, she does not remark on it. "Let us not sully our people's tongue by laying it in a bed of rot."

The cadence of his words is so despondent that her own chest aches in sympathy. Watching for any signs of rejection, Igeyorhm rises to her feet, uncaring of the picture they might present to any curious eyes, and comes across to his side of the table. Gently, making certain not to muffle the sound of her approach, she lifts her hands to Emet-Selch's face - his cheeks broad in this form, his chin narrow and sharp - and cups his jaw, feeling out the new shape of his body beneath her fingertips.

"My soul in this condition is but a feather's weight compared to yours," she declares, breaking the stillness: a value presented as blunt fact, without the cushion of self-pity. "And in its lightness, it is of no more value than any other upon this shard. Given the choice between testing one life or millions, which is best? Any Ascian knows the answer to _that_, Emet-Selch. Why risk an entire star of fragments? If there is any experiment made towards the recombining of souls, it should be waged upon _my_ essence first."

Emet-Selch's sigh is a tickle against her wrist. Some of the tension drains out of him at last as he turns into her palm, leaning against her support. "We are both Ascians, no matter how frail," is his soft counterclaim. His eyes remain closed, but the exhaustion in his voice bypasses such concealments. "To think of one another as replaceable is a step down a road I am loathe to find myself upon. Our souls are equal as kin. Must we quibble over their worth?"

"Our souls are _not_ equal." Her fingers curl against his jaw, meticulously steady despite the passion shuddering through her voice. She frees her other hand, reaching up to brush at the heavy strands of his hair. "If I am lost beyond the void, then your efforts can still bring about my revival. But if _you _perish, or Lahabrea, _or _Elidibus, then none of us can save you. Not as we are now." Before he can protest a second time, she continues to wage her suit, pressing softly with each word like trowels sinking into potter's clay. "I am at a mockery of my full strength like this. Why gamble with so many, when I am far simpler to affect?"

Her unrelenting determination finally makes it through; Emet-Selch opens his eyes again, as blue as her fur, of borrowed color but with an ancient's awareness staring out of the depths. "Because the souls here are _sleeping_, Igeyorhm. They drift through their unnaturally shortened lives ignorant of what they have lost. No matter what happens to them here, their memories will amount to nothing once their spirits are restored to their proper homes. But _you _will remember, Igeyorhm," he continues, his expression shifting openly into a frown. His own tail is lashing now, agitated beyond suppression. "_You_ will carry the burden of your experiences for all time, even once our star is whole. Should such experiments sour, then they would amount to little more than an extra torment upon yourself, all for the sake of untested theories."

They are in public here among mortals; they cannot be themselves. They cannot _ever _truly be themselves, not while Hydaelyn's eyes are watching. Even so, Igeyorhm lifts her fingers to trace the first arc of Emet-Selch's sigil across his brow. She paints the second in rough, invisible daubs, and then the third, whispering his name through the means of skin gracing skin: a promise passed between them both of recognition, as well as duty.

"I have already learned far more than I would ever wish, Emet-Selch." Saying it is excruciating, like swallowing molten iron, each curl of overheated metal searing and charring her from within. "Hydaelyn sought to make me one of Her mortals and succeeded for cycle upon cycle before you freed me. The longer this error continues, the longer our people will wallow in oblivion, lost among Her _lies_." Igeyorhm is no stranger to Convocation debates, even as they are now - a scattered handful of their people, when an entire chamber should have been filled. The crowning point of the debate lies within her grasp. "You say that you fear the time when we might consider one of our souls as expendable. And yet, Emet-Selch, the longer we dally, the sooner that day will almost certainly arrive. We cannot afford to hesitate. What else is there, save to show ourselves as braver than the threats of our enemies?"

Again, Emet-Selch grimaces. His ears press down, flattening themselves like black leaves against his skull. He hesitates, and she thinks she has him.

Then he shakes his head, resolute and worn, and she sees once more the grief etched in the lines of his mouth. "The Thirteenth is yours, Igeyorhm - yours to determine the shape of its unmaking. Show us the strategies of your vision through it instead. Do not martyr yourself on behalf of those who are not even alive enough to be grateful for it." Reluctantly, he reaches up to pull her hands away, clasping them instead like an offering, borrowed knuckles tight against her own. "To me - to _all_ of us - your soul is worth more than a thousand slumbering embers. No matter the degradation that awaits us, that will never change."

"That is the very same reason that spurs me on." Even with hobbled vision, Igeyorhm has no difficulty seeing the power within the man's form; his aether is a sun against her hands. There is no hiding the man's heart, blazing brighter than any other creature around them. "For you and Lahabrea, Mitron and Emmerololth and all the rest of our people - nothing else is greater to me. I will do _anything _to see you all restored. That, too, will never change, Emet-Selch. Never."

She lets him go first, even as the temptation remains to linger - to hope for a different verdict if only they wait for long enough here, whittle away enough time in enough remote villages where no one knows them, until another Ascian might arrive to announce, _Look! We are saved!_ It does not matter, she decides. If she must take action with the Thirteenth, then she will simply have to be as swift as possible about it. Her resolve will allow nothing less.

Once the first reflection returns to the Source, then any new Ascians they recover from that star will be doubled in strength. With the next, those facilities will triple. World after world, their people's essence will be restored, the fractions of their spirits coming together naturally in the Underworld like birds winging home - and if Igeyorhm does her job right, does it _fast_, then the next Ascians that wake will never know this same frailty that she knows now, so blind that they are barely be able to recognize their own souls standing right beside them.

If Igeyorhm can do this while at her weakest, show them that even while nearly-powerless, they are still capable of reclaiming a shard, then she can bring them hope.

She will bring them all home.


End file.
